White US man Randall Dill says IBM fired him to meet race and gender quotas
- In his lawsuit, the consultant accuses the company of forcing him out to further its goals of building a more diverse workforce
IBM is accused in a new lawsuit of forcing out a high-performing white consultant to further the company’s goals of building a more diverse workforce.
The lawsuit filed late Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, federal court is the latest from America First Legal, a conservative group founded by ex-Trump administration officials, to claim that corporate diversity policies violate federal anti-discrimination laws.
Plaintiff Randall Dill says he was placed on a performance improvement plan in July 2023 despite receiving only positive feedback in his seven years as a senior managing consultant at IBM. The plan was impossible to complete and Dill was fired last October, according to the complaint.
Dill says IBM had race and sex quota systems that guided hiring and promotion decisions and that it based executives’ bonuses in part on whether they had met those goals, giving them a strong incentive to push out white men like him.
“Plaintiff suffered significant damages, including lost wages, loss of professional and career development opportunities, and significant non-economic injuries, including humiliation, embarrassment, and loss of reputation,” Dill’s lawyers wrote in the complaint.
IBM in a statement said it does not use hiring quotas and never has.